Forbes has published its list of 100 Most Powerful Women for 2012, with Angela Merkel on top, recognizing the achievements and contributions of women from all around the world. The list, edited by editor Mary Ellen Egan, is based on economic impact and visibility of leading women around the globe and all walks of life.

Over the past decade, women have achieved everything from hottest celebrity in the fashion world to head of state. To tribute female contribution, let’s have a look at some of the most influential women from Forbes’ list of 100 Most Powerful Women.

Angela Merkel: Angela Merkel is at top of the list for second consecutive year. She was also in the top spot from 2007 to 2009. She lost rank in 2010, a hot year for Michelle Obama, who topped the list, replacing the German power-woman.

Angela Merkel is the first female chancellor of Germany, an honor that speaks for itself. She is only the second woman to chair the G8. She has been president of the European Council and came in at number 4 on Forbes’ list of Most Powerful People in the World.

Angela Merkel is one of the most influential women to ever live. She’s seen as playing a crucial role in managing the financial crisis at the European and international level, and has been referred to a “the de facto leader of the European Union”. She has received various awards and prizes including the Vision for Europe Award, the Charlemagne Prize, the Leo Baeck Medal, and the B’nail B’rith Europe Award of Merit.

Hillary Clinton: Hillary Clinton is comes in at the number two spot on Forbes list of 100 Most Powerful Women. She is among the most influential women of the last decade, inspiring hundreds of women around the world.

Hillary Clinton went to Yale Law School where she remained on the Board of Editors of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. It was Yale where she met future president Bill Clinton and started dating him.

Not only did Hillary Clinton play a significant role as first-lady in the mid-90’s, in the last decade she’s made influential decisions as Senator and later Secretary of State, a position she currently holds.

Dilma Rouseff: Dilam Rousseff is Brazilian president and the first woman to hold this position in the country. She is a powerful president, bringing many corrupt government officials to justice. Today, many people believe that Brazil is on its way to becoming a leading world economy – most credit to Dilma Rouseff for embarking the country along the correct path. She has made decisions that powerful men in the country were afraid to make.

Early on in her life, Dilma was involved in an armed struggle supporting Marxism, however, she later changed her views, stopping support of Marxism and all military regimes.

Other powerhouses on the list include tech mavens Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook and Marissa Mayer of Yahoo. One the list are also Sonia Gandhi from India, Melinda Gates, Michelle Obama, Janet Napolitano, Oprah Winfrey, and Lady Gaga. These women have proved over the years that we don’t live in a mans world. Women with gusto, the right attitude and a passion for achievements can easily lead the way.

Silicon Valley tech girls are getting major recognition and I’m not referring to only the media. Fashion designers have also taken notice, inviting many tech heavyweights to VIP fashion events, including front row seating at Fashion Week.

When Marissa Mayer said, “For women, you never have enough excuses to wear great shoes” back in 2008, she wasn’t just making a statement for fashion magazines; she showing off her chic side. In the past, you’d hardly see a tech girl from Silicon Valley making fashion headlines. However, it’s all changing now. If you heard about Chanel’s party last winter, you’d know it had many of Silicon Valley’s finest dining alongside Chanel’s president, John Galantic.

According to an article recently published by The New York Times, Silicon Valley is no boring place to work, especially for women. Tech girls like Alison Pincus and Marissa Mayer are ‘super’ girls not just for their high-tech profiles but also for their high-style. Many working American women take inspiration from these tech ladies not just for their tech savvy and business prowess, but also for their fashion sense. Marissa Mayer, for instance, who recently became CEO of Yahoo, isn’t just the youngest woman to become CEO of a Fortune 500 company, she’s also also pretty darn stylish!

Susan Wojcicki is another American woman in tech who is known for her unconventional and expressive style. She has a five-star career, currently serving as senior vice-president in charge of product management and engineering at Google. She, along with Marissa Mayer, are regularly present at fashion parties and shows.

Silicon Valley isn’t laden with women, so the few that make it to the top make a splash for their C-suite lifestyles. For this reason, designers are eager to target these high profile tech mavens. Not to mention, the demographic market of these ladies not only has money to spend, it’s also a market of women with forward-looking ethos. Allison Speer, founder of Allison Speer Public Relations, was recently quoted saying that her New York clients desperately wanted to target Silicon Valley. Since women in tech are great for the modern business formula, stylists are now realizing the potential to generate massive sales by providing tech girls with styles that make them stand out, without sacrificing decency.

The Alice & Olivia store in San Francisco is targeting tech girls with its career line of peplum tops and cropped pants. Similarly, many other leading fashion stores are now doing the same, with geek inspired clothing and accessories. It’s no longer just gadget makers inquiring into what would most appeal to women; fashion designers are inquiring into what would most appeal to the gadget girl.

That’s because women in tech no longer wear black suits; they are open to try new styles. Tech creativity is trickling into fashion, and the women of tech are experimenting with their clothes (with a desire for sophistication of course, since they want to be taken seriously).

Making up only 25 percent of tech professionals, 11 percent of tech investors and just 5 percent of tech start-up founders, women are still a minority in Silicon Valley. But what an opportunity that represents for tech girls! Sure, a savvy woman will get noticed for her talent; but why not look uber stylish while doing it? Black is out.

First trending we have “RIP Justin Bieber.” Then later, “Ask Steve Jobs.” Twitter kills people who are still alive and asks questions of those that are dead.

Windows 8

Windows 8 comes out this fall and the buzz keeps building! As most people know, it will run on both desktops and tablets, and offer touch screen capabilities and use tiles instead of the dreaded Microsoft start menu. New Windows 8 tablets are expected from all the major hardware manufacturers (Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, HP and Lenovo). We could also see a new crop of tablet-laptop combination devices, sporting Windows 8. The operating system might also work with the new Windows phones expected out later this year. The key for Microsoft is whether it can create a mobile experience for the desktop and can linking mobile devices with traditional desktops give it an edge in each of these markets? I think at the enterprise level, Windows 8 may help Microsoft protect its current customer base and stop the migration to Mac. But will it take off with consumers? I think that’s less likely. People love the iPad –no other tablets have succeeded but the iPad– and even Android is losing ground to the iPhone.

FaceBook IPO Troubles

I reported earlier about the long anticipated Facebook IPO, which took place on Friday. What happened next has turned into nothing short of a debacle. It all started with a Nasdaq glitch; early this week some brokerages were still unsure if their orders had closed, or at what price. Those traders that took losses because of the glitch are still waiting to hear what Nasdaq plans to do about compensating them. Lawsuit #1.

Totally separate from the Nasdaq issues, there’s a regulatory investigation beginning into how Facebook and its bankers handled sensitive financial information that was “selectively disclosed” to big banks ahead of the IPO. Lawsuit #2.

So why has the stock price fallen so much? Some market watchers are saying that Nasdaq’s glitch and other technical trading issues are contributing factors. But others attribute the demise to the IPO itself, which was remarkably high given Facebook’s financial fundamentals. All of the drama around Facebook’s IPO may have some investors taking a very close look at the company — and thinking twice about what its stock is really worth. The big question I have with Facebook, is could the stock take down the rest of the tech sector? Is it enough to “pop the bubble,” so to speak? Comparisons between today’s Internet IPO valuations and the Dotcom boom in the late 1990s have been coming for months now; and while they’re not the same, like any investment trend, they depend on strong investor confidence. Once investors lose confidence in a flagship company, that uncertainty could soon infect other industry brands as well, however unrelated. Facebook could end up blowing us away, of course. They’ve been criticized for being overvalued, and the P/E was at 100 – but remember that Apple’s IPO valuation in 1980 had a P/E ratio of 92. So there is a precedent for succeeding even with a massive valuation compared to actual revenue. I think to succeed, however, Facebook may have to change its attitude -especially toward consumer data. It may have to mine more. It will definitely have to do better on advertising, and mobile advertising is the key. But other approaches shouldn’t be taken off the table -like creating premium subscriptions and the like (think LinkedIn).

Mobile Advertising Challenges

Facebook will need to make some serious cash in the years ahead; while ads will account for a portion of projected revenue growth, in the ad space, Facebook simply isn’t completing well with giants like Google. Facebook will need to look to Apps (i.e. social games like Farmville) for new revenue streams. After all, as compared to ads, there are only so many ads that can be crammed onto a tiny mobile screen. Mobile advertising challenges will be largely driven by Facebook’s massive revenue demands, so I’m excited to see what new startups will end up playing a role in that. Could we see more private equity going into smart mobile advertising solutions? I definitely think so. And I think we could also see more acquisitions in this space occurring as well, from a lot of big brands.

Microsoft So.cl

Microsoft So.cl is being dubbed a “Bing Bulletin Board.” The new social sharing concept debuted this week as a possible rival to Facebook. So.cl looks to me like a hybrid of Bing Search, Pinterest and Facebook. Some have asked whether it’s the next Facebook (suggesting it might become a replacement). If Facebook invented what is modern day social media, why are people looking toward a gen-2 Facebook replacement? Facebook does what it does well. A competitor needs to INVENT something new to draw users away from something that is free and works well. We should look towards new tech startups (like Facebook once was — when it invented its own genre of technology). I am sure Microsoft understands it won’t know Facebook out so easily, since as of right now, users can only sign in to So.cl though their Facebook or Windows Live accounts. I’m not sure that I see So.cl succeeding at all. Google+ (a.k.a. Google c+) is having a hard enough time, and they have Google Search and the Android platform to support them. How can Microsoft even hope to succeed? I think the real direction for social networks today is one-to-one networking and private networks, sites that keep your information private. We’ve seen a bunch of these startups recently like Path, Pair, Cupple, Everyme and Sgrouples.

What does the Kleiner Perkins Lawsuit mean for Women in tech?

Women in tech is an issue that’s simmered for years – but it just got a lot hotter with a sexual harrassment lawsuit against the legendary VC firm Kleiner Perkins, by a former partner. The female investment partner claims she suffered multiple instances of sexual harassment, retaliation and sexual and gender discrimination over the past six years. Out of 50 people on its investment and operations teams, Kleiner employs 12 women, according to the firm’s website. These figures reflect that Kleiner is more gender-diverse than the venture capital industry as a whole, which is dominated by men, especially white men. I don’t think this suit can be marked as a clear reflection of the way women are treated in Silicon Valley or the technology space as a whole; it looks to me like an isolated incident. But nonetheless, this is terrible press for a company that, on the surface, has been trying to maintain gender diversity.

Are women treated differently in tech? It’s a hot topic of debate on SheBytes! For whatever reason, the majority of people in tech are men (or boys) and that’s definitely driven the culture. I don’t believe women are excluded from success in tech, but I think the fraternal nature of the industry might make it harder to network and gain notice. On the other hand, being a standout in a sea of men can also work in a woman’s favor; it depends how she plays it. We have some great role models out there with Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook), Meg Whitman (HP), Marissa Mayer (Google), etc., who have done it right!

She joined Google in 1999, when the company had under 20 employees (talk about the right place at the right time!)

Mayer became the first female engineer hired by Google

Over 10 years later, Marissa is a Google Executive with her official title being; Vice President of Location and Local Services, and is frequently the warm, public face of the tech Goliath

To me personally, this short synopsis is extremely inspiring.

Although few women (and men for that matter), are even close to as brilliant as Mayer (@marissamayer) clearly is (she Majored in “Symbolic Systems” at Stanford), her brilliance only adds to the element of encouragement her story gives out.

In a recent Huffington Post article on Mayer, Bianca Bosker writes; “there was not a single other female engineer — Mayer would become Google’s first”. Now despite this in itself being a bold and courageous decision for Mayer to make (she reportedly had 14 job offers at the time she went with Google), by isolating Mayer as the only female engineer in Google, we largely miss the point.

Mayer decided to become a female engineer.

In the tech world as a whole there is a TREMENDOUS scarcity of female engineers, and its more than accurate to call that job sector male dominated. Then look at the fact that Mayer became a female engineer back in 1999, when there were even less women in technology.

Perhaps Mayer’s willingness was in part because “Mayer…calls herself a “proud geek””!

Personally, I’m proud just to call myself a geek, because Mayer is an archetype; a unique woman who paved the way for women interested in technology.

My favorite quote from the article is:

“I wanted to work at Google because I felt utterly unprepared to work at a search engine”

This type of daring is what Mayer is all about. It’s a loud call to women everywhere to not only challenge the boundaries we see plainly in the workplace, but even more so, to challenge our own capacities.

It is vital that we perpetually put ourselves in situations which we are actually, “unprepared” for. By doing this, we will be able to truly harness our personal potential and strive to succeed!